


keep calm and let HR handle it

by hi_raeth



Series: reblog (mini fics + prompt fills) [17]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: 5+1 Things, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, CEO!Ben, F/M, Head of HR!Rey, Mentions of Canonical Character Death, Safe to Read if You're Triggered by Pregnancy, but there's a happy ending I promise, the rest of the ST gang makes brief appearances here and there, uh-oh here comes some unexpected sad stuff, while these two go from colleagues to friends to lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-22
Updated: 2019-12-01
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:08:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 11,889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21524242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hi_raeth/pseuds/hi_raeth
Summary: Rey managed to go a full year without ever directly interacting with her new CEO, but now it seems like he’s dropping by her office every single week.(Because what else is a love-struck fool to do when he falls for his head of HR other than find reasons to visit her department?)OR: five times Ben gets summoned down to HR, and one time Rey gets called into the CEO’s office, based on the prompt: "Rey as the director of HR at [office] and Kylo/Ben starts finding reasons to be sent down to HR".
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Series: reblog (mini fics + prompt fills) [17]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1048628
Comments: 375
Kudos: 1090





	1. 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [OptimisticBeth](https://archiveofourown.org/users/OptimisticBeth/gifts).



> Beth, I'm so sorry it's taken me one full year to fill this prompt! I loved it from the moment I received it, but I've spent all this time writing and re-writing it because something just didn't feel right. And now I finally get it: this prompt isn't meant to be a one-shot.
> 
> It's meant to be a _six_ -shot. So sit back, relax, and I hope you like it!

> **To:** [ben_solo@organafoundation.com](mailto:ben_solo@organafoundation.com)  
>  **From:** [rey_niima@organafoundation.com](mailto:rey_niima@organafoundation.com)  
>  **Subject: Office Conduct**
> 
> Dear Mr. Solo,
> 
> This department has been contacted by several concerned individuals regarding your conduct this afternoon. Attached please find my schedule for the next two weeks; I would appreciate it if you could drop by my office for a meeting between us at your earliest convenience.
> 
> Warm regards,  
>  Rey Niima,  
>  Head of Human Resources,  
>  The Organa Foundation.
> 
> **To:** [rey_niima@organafoundation.com](mailto:rey_niima@organafoundation.com)  
>  **From:** [ben_solo@organafoundation.com](mailto:ben_solo@organafoundation.com)  
>  **Subject: Re: Office Conduct**
> 
> Dear Ms. Niima,
> 
> As I’m sure you’re aware, I’m quite busy handling the fall-out of today’s events. My only availability this month would be at 5PM this Friday. Of course, I don’t expect you to stay after hours for a meeting. Perhaps we should reschedule for next month?
> 
> Best regards,  
>  Ben Solo,  
>  Chief Executive Officer,  
>  The Organa Foundation.
> 
> **To:** [ben_solo@organafoundation.com](mailto:ben_solo@organafoundation.com)  
>  **From:** [rey_niima@organafoundation.com](mailto:rey_niima@organafoundation.com)  
>  **Subject: Re: Office Conduct**
> 
> Dear Mr. Solo,
> 
> I look forward to seeing you on Friday, in that case.
> 
> Warm regards,  
>  Rey Niima,  
>  Head of Human Resources,  
>  The Organa Foundation.

It’s a little… surreal, Rey thinks, that she’s managed to avoid her new CEO for a whole year only to have their first in-person encounter revolve around her telling _her boss_ off for throwing a temper tantrum.

She’s still a little hung up on the _boss_ part, but Rose and Kaydel had pretty much forced her to send that email on Wednesday after news of the morning’s events started spreading like wildfire.

“This is exactly what HR is for!” Kaydel had insisted.

“If anyone else thrashed their office and made their assistant piss their pants in fear, you’d definitely call them in,” Rose had pointed out.

The keyword being _anyone else_ , Rey had attempted to argue. The chain of command is clear, after all, in that the CEO sits at the very top of it, while the head of HR falls somewhere around the middle at best. But her team had refused to take no for an answer, and so here she is, two days later, anxiously waiting for her boss to arrive so that she can… gently scold him for his inappropriate behavior? Drop hints about anger management? Make pointed comments about the cost of replacing office supplies and furniture?

Rey has had two whole days to prepare for this meeting, and she still feels like she’s walking into it completely blind. She’s spent every free moment since Solo’s reply quizzing her friends and coworkers about him, only to somehow end up with even _more_ questions about her boss than she had to begin with.

Paige thinks that Ben Solo is intimidating, but also shy. Finn says he’s intense and result-driven, but he tries to keep things light in the office. Poe swears he’s seen some of the scariest people in the business leave Solo’s office in tears, but Wednesday’s outburst was the first time anyone in the building had actually witnessed his legendary anger issues.

 _An okay boss_ , the consensus seems to be. Nowhere near as loved and respected as his predecessor and mother, but also nowhere near as bad as all of them had feared when it was announced that the COO of their sworn enemy was jumping ship to return to the family business.

It’s this reassurance that Rey clings to when the dreaded knock on her door comes at exactly 5PM. At least he’s punctual, even for a meeting he obviously tried his best to evade. Joke’s on him, though, because now they’re both wasting their Friday evening when they could have had this meeting at a perfectly normal working hour instead.

“Come in,” Rey calls out, and it instantly occurs to her how strange it is that she’s giving the CEO permission to enter her office. How in the world is she supposed to build up to the telling him off part?

Said CEO strides into her office with his eyes firmly fixed upon his phone and a furrow between his brows. “I apologize, Ms. Niima, but I have a previous engagement scheduled for forty-five minutes from now so we’re going to have to make this–”

He stops short as soon as he looks up from his phone and at her, and usually Rey would break the ice by asking if she has something on her face or in her teeth but… she’s equally at a loss for words, it seems.

Because here’s the thing: Rey _thought_ she knew what Ben Solo looks like. After all, she’d seen him from a distance the day of Leia’s retirement party, when he was first announced as his mother’s successor, and sometimes their paths cross and she spies him down the hallway or across a room. But distance… distance does not do Ben Solo justice.

He’s tall, but she’d figured as much just from seeing him tower over literally everyone else in the office. Broad too, but she vaguely recalls Poe once insisting to a skeptical Finn that Ben Solo is shredded, so that’s no surprise.

But up close like this, what strikes Rey the most is his eyes. She’d forgotten – or maybe never even realized – that he has Leia’s eyes. It’s disconcerting to see that familiar glint of quiet determination lost in a sea of something she’s unable to name, something she only recognizes because like calls to like.

Rey shakes that thought off and snaps herself out of it, just in time to stand up and take Solo’s hand as he reaches for hers.

“It’s nice to finally meet you, Ms. Niima,” he says, and Rey has to force herself to concentrate on his words rather than the smile that frames them. “I’ve heard so much about you, especially from my mother.”

She blurts out the first thing that comes to mind, still holding his hand. “It’s Rey. Um, I mean – please, call me Rey. No one calls me by my last name.” It’s not even hers, not really, but this is a HR meeting with her boss, not a heart-to-heart with her best friend.

“Same here,” he says with a shrug, and somehow they let go of each other to settle into their seats at the same moment. “Just Ben will do.”

Rey knows for a fact that a lot of people call him by his last name – nearly everyone, in fact, with the exception of Poe and his preferred _boss man_ – but that’s not what they’re here to talk about, and she’s not going to let herself get derailed – not by tiny details like what he prefers to go by or the way the corners of his eyes crinkle when he smiles at her or how cramped he makes her rather spacious office feel.

She turns her attention to the clock hanging above her door instead – a kitschy little thing Rose brought back as a souvenir from a trip once – and is rudely reminded of the circumstances surrounding their meeting. It is 5PM on a Friday evening, and she _should_ be at the company’s weekly happy hour over at Maz’s instead of dealing with her misbehaving boss. It’s a much-needed reminder, one Rey keeps in mind as she dives straight into it.

“Okay, Ben. Since you’re in a hurry, let’s get right to it. Could you talk me through the events of Wednesday morning?” She’s always been a no-nonsense, straight to the point kind of person, but Rey feels a brief flash of regret for her bluntness when the smile on Ben’s face suddenly disappears, only to be replaced by a perfect mask of… nothing.

“Right. Wednesday.” He clears his throat and drops his eyes down to his hands, laced together on the other end of her desk, and Rey watches in mild concern as this huge man seems to curl in on himself. “Look, it was… it was not my best moment, that’s for sure.”

He looks up then, carefully meeting her eyes, and Rey encourages him to go on with a wordless nod and the listening face she’s spent all her time in HR perfecting.

It works like a charm, every time. “I’ve been trying so hard,” Ben says quietly, still facing her even as his eyes occasionally dart away, “ever since I got here, and it’s been a whole year so I thought maybe things really had changed, maybe _I’d_ changed, but then… then Wednesday happened, and _fu-_ freaking Armitage Hux just had to swoop in and ruin everything for us, and I just…” He brings one hand up to run his fingers through his hair in an agitated manner, while the other clenches into a fist. This time, when his eyes move over her shoulder to stare out her window, they stay there.

“ _Of course_ Hux was the one to ruin everything. It’s always– maybe he brings out the worst in me. Maybe it’s just FO as a whole. Or maybe I’m just an asshole making excuses–”

His speech is getting faster, his breathing harder, and Rey looks down to find the fingers curled into a fist pressing so hard into his palm it looks like they might cut crescents into his skin.

It’s instinct, the way she reaches out for him without a moment’s thought or hesitation, the way she places her hand on top of his to soothe and comfort.

“Ben,” she says quietly, firmly.

And his eyes immediately snap back to hers.

“Sorry,” he says, the tension seeping out of his shoulders and eyes and jaw, leaving him looking rather like a deflated balloon. “Sorry, I just… I’m guessing you’ve heard about my experience with First Order?”

Who hasn’t heard the tale of how Ben Solo nearly gave his mother a heart attack when he chose to work with her mortal enemy right out of college? Who hasn’t heard all the whispered horror stories about his notoriously short fuse and his cold, unfeeling way of doing business and his complete lack of passion and principles?

Except… that’s in the past, all of it. And in the entire year that Ben Solo has served as CEO of the Organa Foundation, this is the very first incident she’s heard of. So Rey decides to go easy on him, especially in light of what he just said – or ranted – about trying to change.

“Bits and pieces,” she claims, a white lie.

Ben pulls his hand away from hers with a nod. “Enough to know what kind of person I was,” he assumes. “It’s probably true, everything you’ve heard. Especially the worst parts. But I meant what I said, about trying. That’s really not who I am anymore.”

He hangs his head in shame.

“Or at the very least, it’s not who I want to be anymore.”

Rey almost wishes his hand were still in hers, just so she could give him a little supportive squeeze. “One slip-up doesn’t undo a whole year of hard work, Ben,” she says instead, as gently as she can. “And given that this is the first time you and I have had to sit down, I’d say you’ve been doing pretty well this past year.”

It occurs to her, as she waits for him to absorb her encouragement and look up again, that this is not at all how she’d expected this meeting to go. First of all, she’s supposed to be scolding him, not comforting him. And secondly… this is _her boss_ , not some overworked newbie stressing out about their first project. Absolutely no one is going to believe she ended up spending her meeting with the notorious Ben Solo as some kind of motivational coach instead.

But then he looks up at her with a smile – a small, soft thing – and suddenly… suddenly Rey’s okay with all of it.

“Thank you. That… that means a lot. And I’m sorry, for all of this… babbling. I don’t know what came over me, I don’t usually open up to people like this–“

“It’s a HR thing,” Rey quickly assures him, even though she can count the number of people who’ve actually broken down and opened up to her during a meeting on one hand. She just… she doesn’t want him to be uncomfortable.

Except she might’ve just made things uncomfortable with that reminder of the roles they’re supposed to play, the professional boundaries that should be in place.

Ben stills for a moment, and then sits up straighter, slides his hands off her desk and out of view. “Right. It’s just part of your job, isn’t it? Anyway, I should get going, there’s a conference call I need to attend to and I’m sure you have plans, what with it being Friday evening and all that–”

Rey watches in a sort of stunned silence as he abruptly stands up and cuts their meeting short, jarred by the sudden switch into exactly the kind of CEO she’d expected him to be. It’s only when he makes to turn his back to her that she snaps out of it.

“Wait, we still have to talk about what you did–“

“It was a mistake,” Ben says, without turning to look at her. “A slip-up, like you said. And it won’t happen again, I promise.” With that, he sweeps out of her office just as suddenly as he’d entered it.

And Rey is left staring at her door, trying to process the weirdest meeting of her life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One down, four +1 left to go!
> 
> And hey: hello again, friends! It's been a while - more than four months, if anyone's keeping track. My hiatus was long, unexpected, and damaging, because wow is it hard to get back into writing proper fics after four months of nothing but the occasional Twitter fic. I've tried my best to polish this, so hopefully it's not as clunky as I fear it is. And hopefully things will get smoother with each subsequent update, as I remember how this writing thing works.
> 
> Until then, thank you so much for reading, I hope you liked it, and as always, comments are greatly appreciated. Or hey, come find me on [Tumblr](https://eleanor-writes-stuff.tumblr.com/) and [Twitter](https://twitter.com/hiraeth_writes)!


	2. 2

> **To:** [rey_niima@organafoundation.com](mailto:rey_niima@organafoundation.com)  
>  **From:** [dopheld_mitaka@organafoundation.com](mailto:dopheld%20mitaka@organafoundation.com)  
>  **Subject: CODE RED!!!**
> 
> Rey,
> 
> We’ve got a code red on our hands. Grumpy Poe went into Mr. Solo’s office ten minutes ago and they started fighting pretty much immediately, something about Leia. Finn and I managed to separate them before things got physical, and Finn’s dealing with Poe right now. But when I tried to calm Mr. Solo down, he said he was going to go take a walk to clear his mind and that if anyone needs him, he’ll be down in HR.
> 
> So heads-up, I guess. Good luck!
> 
> Sent from my iPhone.
> 
> **To:** [dopheld_mitaka@organafoundation.com](mailto:dopheld_mitaka@organafoundation.com)  
>  **From:** [rey_niima@organafoundation.com](mailto:rey_niima@organafoundation.com)  
>  **Subject: Re: CODE RED!!!**
> 
> Hey Mitaka,
> 
> Thanks for the warning. I’ll handle things from here. And tell Finn and Poe to get their shit together before HR gets involved, please.
> 
> Warm regards,  
> Rey Niima,  
> Head of Human Resources,  
> The Organa Foundation.

There’s a knock on her open door less than a minute after Rey hits _send_ on her reply to Mitaka, and she looks up from her screen to find an unexpectedly nervous-looking Ben Solo hovering in her doorway.

“Hi,” he says, more to the ground than her, and takes a deep breath before finally dragging his eyes up to hers. “Do you, uh, have a minute?”

It’s odd, how she doesn’t even have to fake or call upon the smile that immediately tugs at her lips. What’s odder still is the fluttery feeling in her stomach that accompanies the realization that _she’s_ the one he came to, but Rey sets that aside for later.

“Sure, come in.” She waves Ben in and watches him carefully shut the door behind himself before crossing the short distance between them to collapse into the chair opposite hers.

Ben closes his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose with a sigh before he sits up straight and turns to her. “Judging by your reaction, I’m guessing you already know about the clusterfu– the _situation_ upstairs.”

Rey rolls her chair a little closer to her desk and leans in. “Given the state Poe’s been in these past few days, it was really only a matter of time before he finally got that fight he’s been itching for. I’m just surprised he went after you instead of literally anyone other than his boss.”

“Perks of being childhood friends with the CEO and the former CEO’s golden boy, I guess,” Ben shrugs, a hint of bitterness creeping into his voice. He notices it too, Rey thinks, because the next thing she knows he’s forcing a tight smile and cracking a joke he obviously does not find entertaining in the slightest. “Imagine being so confident in your job security that you get to target your boss’ biggest weakness just for sport. Must be nice.”

He drops the act when his forced smile starts looking painful, and Rey scrambles to match what little he’s just revealed about this morning’s fight with the bits and pieces she’s heard about his past with Poe and his relationship with Leia.

It’s an alarmingly incomplete picture, one that leaves her feeling almost helpless. But Ben is here, chose to be _here_ with _her_ out of all the places and people he could have gone to, so she must’ve done something right the first time around… right?

She thinks of the little smile he’d given her last Friday when she’d tried to be supportive of him, thinks of how sincere and surprised his eyes had looked, and wonders if maybe…

“It’s shitty of him, is what it is,” Rey asserts, and then holds her breath as she waits for Ben to react.

Maybe, just maybe… all he needs is someone to listen to him, to let him know he’s not alone. It’s a feeling she knows well, and one she’s spent years figuring out how to deal with – successfully, if the little twitch of Ben’s lips is anything to go by.

“Yeah, I guess it is,” he says, slowly sinking into his chair as the fight seeps out of his tense shoulders, as he senses an ally. “Good luck telling _him_ that, though. Poe Dameron can do no wrong in the eyes of everyone, especially his own. It’s always been that way.”

Rey can’t help the little burst of laughter that escapes her at the thought, not with the memory of Poe being sent to the doghouse by his absolutely livid boyfriend still so fresh in her mind. “Maybe in your experience, but I’d bet good money that Poe is definitely getting an earful about his many, many failures at this very moment. Some of us have seen too much to be fooled by that act of his,” she tells Ben with a smirk, only to remember–

“You probably know what I’m talking about. Childhood friends, huh?”

“Friends, neighbors, two kids who just happened to be around the same age and were forced to spend time together because of it – same difference, right?” Ben shrugs without looking at her, unnaturally preoccupied with fixing a rolled-up sleeve.

Poe tells the story pretty differently, painting a picture of two boys finding brotherhood in their friendship and supporting each other through their toughest childhood years until one of them inexplicably abandoned the other. But then again, Rey supposes there are always two sides to every story.

She lets Ben stew in his residual frustration for a little longer before she asks, as gently as she can, “Do you want to talk about it?”

That catches his attention, but maybe not in the best way. Silence stretches out between them as Ben just keeps _looking_ at her, and eventually Rey feels the need to add, “We don’t have to if you don’t want to, it’s totally–”

“That’s the thing, though,” Ben interrupts, his voice softer than she’s ever heard it, almost hushed with… confusion? Wonder? A secret he means to keep just between the two of them? Whatever it is, she has to strain her ears to catch what he says next. “I _do_ want to – talk about it, that is… with _you_. Which makes no fucking sense, we’ve literally only met once and we’re practically strangers, so what is it about you that–”

He cuts himself off, and for a moment Rey is overcome by the sudden and visceral fear that history is about to repeat itself, that Ben is going to shut down and get up and leave her life just as suddenly as he’d crashed into it all over again.

It makes absolutely no sense, but that seems par for the course considering their… acquaintanceship started with her intending to dress down her CEO. So Rey doesn’t let herself think too much before she quietly says, “I’ve been told I’m a good listener.”

Ben forces out a sharp puff of breath, something she’d almost be tempted to brand a laugh if not for the clear frustration on his face. “All part of the job, right?”

His words, his _tone_ – they jog something in her memory, and Rey recalls that he’d said pretty much the same thing on Friday too, right before he walked out. It’s not much, but at least it’s another piece to add to the puzzle she’s been trying to solve ever since that evening.

For now, though, she’s got a far more pressing issue to address.

“I suppose, but I’ve also been told it’s what makes me a pretty decent friend… if you’re looking for one of those.”

Because very little about her experience with Ben Solo so far makes any sense, but that instant spark of recognition she’d felt upon seeing his lost eyes? The way she instinctively understands what he’s silently asking for, what he desperately needs? How every single part of him seems to light up whenever she chooses to stand by his side?

That… that makes all the sense in the world to Rey.

So she offers him a small smile as he weighs her words and her offer, one that grows brighter when Ben’s lips curve to match hers.

“I could use a friend, I think,” he says, “especially since the only one I have is being kind of a dick right now.”

Rey makes a show of closing her laptop and pushing it aside. “Tell me everything.”

So Ben does, starting with the familiar story of a lonely, scared child that makes her heart ache in recognition and solidarity. She’d learned long ago that family isn’t always all it’s cracked up to be, but that doesn’t make the ugly truth behind the Organa-Solos’ picture-perfect family any less surprising or easier to swallow: two parents who loved and cared for their son but also loved and cared for many other things, two people who didn’t know what to do with the child who reminded them more of the ghosts of their pasts than themselves, two individuals who tried their best to give him everything only to end up giving him everything _but_ the things a child needs most.

And then: the golden boy who was everything his parents wanted and everything he was not.

And then: the uncle who could see the good in even the worst of people but not him.

And then: the man who promised him the belonging and acceptance he’d longed for his whole life.

By the time Ben’s done speaking, he still hasn’t actually gone into detail about his fight with Poe. But Rey thinks she’s heard enough about their past to figure it out, seen enough of Ben’s barely-healed wounds to know how easy they would be to reopen. So she doesn’t pry or poke or prod – not today, not when Ben has already offered her so much. Instead, she wordlessly reaches across her desk and offers him her hand, giving Ben a smile and a squeeze while he slowly eases himself back into the present.

“Thank you,” he finally says, voice tellingly thick, “for listening. I’ve never… no one’s ever… I just, I needed to tell my side of the story, just once, you know?”

It’s funny – and a little sad too, Rey realizes – how she’d gone all these years working at the foundation thinking she knew Ben Solo’s story when really, she’d heard it from everyone _but_ him. And she knows she’s not the only one – far from it, and Ben knows, Ben must know, Ben _knew_ when he decided to come back and shoulder his mother’s legacy and work alongside people who’d formed an opinion of him long before they even knew him.

Rey gives him a smile in lieu of all the things she wants to tell him – how brave he is, how far he’s come, how she’ll be there every remaining step of the way if he wants her to…

“Thank you for sharing it with me,” she says instead, lacing their fingers together even tighter in the hopes of conveying all the things she can’t quite put into words without saying too much. “And anytime, Ben. I mean it.”

He stares at her for the longest moment, and then finally gives her a nod. “I’ll probably take you up on that quite a bit,” he says with a smile as he slowly pulls his hand away and stands up to leave. “You know, now that we’re friends and all.”

And he sounds so _happy_ at the thought, it nearly breaks her heart.

Rey stands as well, though she manages to keep herself on her side of the desk and squash down the impulse to walk him the ten feet to her door, at least. “Friends and all,” she echoes in agreement, knowing even as she says so that it doesn’t make any sense or mean anything.

But Ben, Ben just smiles at her as if it makes all the sense in the world, and so maybe… maybe it does, just for the two of them.

Rey is no less puzzled by their interaction when Ben Solo leaves her office for the second time, but at least this time there’s a smile on her face as she gets back to work.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, I still have no idea what I'm doing but hopefully this lived up to expectations and its predecessor, especially after so many of you were so kind and supportive and encouraging the last time around. YOU GUYS!!! ❤️❤️❤️
> 
> Anyway, if you weren't pleased by all that convenient 'glossing over the backstory' I did to keep this chapter a manageable and uniform length: worry not. We'll get more of Ben's Sad Tragic Backstory soon, I promise. Until then, as always: thanks for reading, I hope you liked it, and please don't hesitate to leave a comment!


	3. 3

> **To:** [rey_niima@organafoundation.com](mailto:rey_niima@organafoundation.com)   
>  **From:** [ben_solo@organafoundation.com](mailto:ben_solo@organafoundation.com)   
>  **Subject: Employee engagement efforts**
> 
> Hi Rey,
> 
> I just met with the board this morning, and one of the things they want us to work on is our employee engagement. I’m guessing yours is the relevant department for me to go to on this. Would it be okay for me to drop by your office sometime today to get the discussion started? I’m free any time after lunch.
> 
> Best regards,   
> Ben Solo,   
> Chief Executive Officer,   
> The Organa Foundation.
> 
> **To:** [ben_solo@organafoundation.com](mailto:ben_solo@organafoundation.com)   
>  **From:** [rey_niima@organafoundation.com](mailto:rey_niima@organafoundation.com)   
>  **Subject: Re: Employee engagement efforts**
> 
> Hey Ben,
> 
> Sure! I’ve actually been looking into that too, so I’ve got some ideas I’d love to bounce off you. I’m free at 3PM, see you then!
> 
> Warm regards,  
> Rey Niima,  
> Head of Human Resources,  
> The Organa Foundation.

A shadow falls upon her office two minutes before 3PM, and Rey looks up to find the increasingly familiar sight of Ben Solo hovering in her doorway.

“Hey,” he says, and Rey blinks at the realization that she’s _happy_ to hear his voice again, even if it is a tiny bit hesitant as he takes in the sight of her surrounded by folders and print-outs. “Is this a good time?”

“Oh, right,” Rey mutters as she looks at the somewhat-organized mess she’s made. “Come on in, I’ll just-“ She makes quick work of putting everything together into a single stack on the corner of her desk while Ben closes the door behind him and settles into his spot opposite her.

Rey looks up from her task and greets him with a grin that feels just the slightest bit too big on her face. “Hi.”

It’s hard to be self-conscious when Ben returns the gesture with a huge smile of his own, though. “Hi.”

She’s not sure how long they would’ve remained frozen like that, just smiling at each other in silence, if Rose hadn’t startled them with a barely muffled shriek of laughter from beyond the door. But she does, and the whole thing does a rather good job of snapping them both out of their unexpected little moment.

“So,” Rey says as Ben clears his throat and sits up a little straighter. “Employee engagement. Any ideas?”

Ben shrugs even as he gives her a sheepish little smile. “I was kinda hoping you’d have some, actually. Or maybe you could walk me through what my mom and Amilyn used to do?”

It’s a bit of a surprise, hearing Ben address her predecessor so familiarly when she’d remained Ms. Holdo to nearly everyone in the foundation up until the day she retired, but a hazy memory of Amilyn mentioning her godson in passing once quickly pushes its way to the forefront of Rey’s mind.

“Oh, sure! Amilyn implemented a lot of ideas over the years, she liked to call them ‘bonding opportunities’, but I think my personal favorite was probably how Leia and Han used to invite everyone over for…”

Rey trails off at Ben’s sharp inhale, and it takes every single bit of willpower she has not to clap a hand over her mouth in horror at her thoughtlessness. It’d taken most of them months, nearly a year, before their grief had run its course, before they could smile at fond memories rather than mourn lost moments. Even she still struggles to remain unaffected by Han’s memory sometimes – so why, _why_ hadn’t she considered how his son might feel before so casually invoking him?

It’s not easy, forcing herself to look at Ben, but when she does she’s surprised to find a tiny smile on his lips and a faraway look in his eyes. “The cookouts,” he murmurs. “I remember those – Mom basically jumped at any opportunity to have everyone over, and Da- Dad always grumbled that she only liked it because he was the one who had to do all the cooking.”

Her heart cries out at his little stumble, at the reminder that this is the son who gave up everything about his former life the night his dad died and ended a ten-year cold war between him and his family just so he could rush home and be by his mom’s side. Somehow, that part always gets left out in the many retellings of Ben Solo’s troubled past.

“She- they kept up the tradition for that long?” Ben asks her, looking pleasantly surprised. “There must’ve been at least a hundred people crammed into the yard by then–” He laughs at the thought.

“Give or take,” Rey confirms with a shrug. “It was crowded, for sure, but… but that was my favorite part, I think. It felt… cozy? Like how I imagine the holidays must be for people who get to spend it with their family, grandparents and cousins and distant relatives all crammed into a tiny house filled with food and laughter and…”

Now it’s Ben’s turn to look at her with eyes that see too much – aided, no doubt, by the poorly concealed longing in her voice.

“Anyway,” Rey cuts herself off with a shrug. “That’s certainly an idea, but like you said: there are at least a hundred of us now, and I don’t suppose you happen to have a huge yard perfect for dinner parties just lying around?”

Ben shakes his head. “No yard, I’m afraid. And my tiny balcony is a tight fit even for me, so…”

She finds herself oddly charmed by the image of Ben Solo, _multi-fucking-millionaire_ (according to Poe) and _the oldest of old money, think wrinkled ballsack old_ (also courtesy of Poe), living in a humble little apartment with a tiny little balcony just like hers, but that’s not exactly relevant right now.

“Right,” Rey says instead. “I figured that might be the case, so I was also toying with the idea of staff lunches, maybe? We could make use of the open space downstairs, or one of the bigger conference rooms on the 36th floor, and set out a bunch of food to encourage everyone to drop by for lunch and just… mingle,” she finishes weakly, faltering under Ben’s attentive gaze – or scrutiny, more likely. It’d seemed like a good idea in her mind, but now–

A thick silence descends upon them as Ben considers the idea, and then… and then he tilts his head to the side with a smile. “That could work. Everyone loves food, right?”

Rey nods a little too enthusiastically, buoyed by relief. “Exactly! And this would have a way higher engagement rate than any after-work or weekend activities, since everyone’s already here anyway.”

“Good thinking,” Ben says with a nod, and Rey pretends the warmth that begins to spread within her is simply a reaction to earning praise from her boss. “Okay, we’ll definitely look into this. What else do you have?”

And for the first time since their initial encounter, Rey thinks she might understand Ben’s confusion over their effect on each other. Because all it takes is one approving smile, one supportive look, and suddenly she finds the courage to tell him about every possibility she’s ever entertained, from serious ideas about replacing the cookout with an annual picnic to ridiculous suggestions like a hot dog eating contest.

The thing is, Ben laughs at the more ridiculous ones. And the _important_ thing is, Ben has a beautiful laugh – it seems to escape him despite himself, but he treats it like a welcome surprise each and every time it happens, and his smile grows wider and his eyes grow warmer and Rey ran out of ridiculous things to suggest about four ideas ago but like hell is she going to stop making this man laugh.

Not by choice, anyway. But at 4PM, Kaydel promptly knocks on her door to remind her that she has another meeting in half an hour.

“Thanks, Kay!” Rey calls out at her closed door, and looks back at Ben to find his smile slowly fading. A faint little grin remains, but the rest of him is composed now, every bit the professional CEO he’s supposed to be. The sight of him back to his usual self, slowly but surely closing himself off, reminds her of one last thing that needs to be done.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t realize how much of your time I was taking up–” he says as he begins to rise, and Rey reaches out to wrap her fingers around his wrist before she’s even consciously aware of making the decision to stop him.

“Ben, wait!”

He does, falling completely still as he stares at their hands.

Rey quickly lets go. “Um, I, I have one last idea.” Ben nods wordlessly for her to go on and so she does, making a mess of the little speech she must’ve rehearsed a dozen times in her mind over lunch. “So a few of us have this long-running Friday happy hour thing – it’s nothing big or fancy, we just go over to Maz’s to celebrate the end of the week. But I was thinking it might be fun if more people start showing up… especially the ones who have a standing invitation.”

“Oh,” Ben says. “I had no idea about that. Sounds like fun, though,” he offers with a smile.

“Wait, what?”

Surely Poe must’ve invited him at some point, right? And she knows for a fact he and Leia talk about how he’s settling in on a regular basis – why wouldn’t she have mentioned the long-standing tradition she regularly participated in? “But I thought… I don’t know why, I just assumed you knew you’re always invited–”

Realization is slow to dawn in his eyes. “I’m– you guys actually _want_ – wait, so that’s what you meant when you mentioned standing invitations?”

Rey bites back the impulse to cringe; she sounds so… obvious and pushy and maybe even a little desperate when he puts it like that. But… “Yes. So um, consider this your proper, formal invitation to drop by and join us on Fridays, whenever you feel like it.”

Friends invite friends to come join them and their other friends for drinks, right? Especially when they can sense just how lonely said friend is.

Ben’s still smiling, but– “I don’t know, Rey,” he says slowly. “Won’t it be awkward, having the boss around?”

The words slip past her lips before she can even register them, let alone stop them. “I don’t know, I rather like having the boss around.”

There’s no hint of teasing in her voice, not even the slightest bit of flirtation – only the truth blurted out without thought, laid bare in all its sincerity and honesty.

But maybe that’s exactly why Ben’s smile grows wider and why his eyes light up and why he says–

“Well then, I guess I’ll see you on Friday.”

And sure enough, Friday evening finds Ben Solo sandwiched between her and Poe, his safe zone while everyone else slowly warms up to his presence.

Their arms and legs brush together all evening, and Ben keeps leaning in to whisper into her ear rather than yelling at her to be heard over the din, and all in all Rey thinks it’s her most successful employee engagement attempt to date.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact #1: I know literally nothing about running or even working in HR.  
> Fun fact #2: Writing is apparently not muscle memory, because I _still_ don't know what I'm doing. I keep waiting for it to come back to me but... looks like we're winging this, friends! The only thing I know for sure is that we're wrapping up by this week because I need to get started on my [holiday giveaway fics](https://twitter.com/hiraeth_writes/status/1193908219325767680), so expect frequent - if not daily - updates from here on out.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading, and thank you all again for your kind words the last time around! Y'all know I love hearing from you guys, so please don't hesitate to drop a line. See you soon!


	4. 4

> **To:** [ben_solo@organafoundation.com](mailto:ben_solo@organafoundation.com)  
>  **From:** [rey_niima@organafoundation.com](mailto:rey_niima@organafoundation.com)  
>  **Subject: Meeting?**
> 
> Hey Ben,
> 
> Would you mind dropping by for a quick meeting today? I’m free all day, so just come by whenever you can.
> 
> Warm regards,  
> Rey Niima,  
> Head of Human Resources,  
> The Organa Foundation.
> 
> **To:** [rey_niima@organafoundation.com](mailto:rey_niima@organafoundation.com)  
>  **From:** [ben_solo@organafoundation.com](mailto:ben_solo@organafoundation.com)  
>  **Subject: Re: Meeting?**
> 
> Hi Rey,
> 
> I’m always happy to visit, but I feel like I should ask… what did I do this time?
> 
> Best regards,  
> Ben Solo,  
> Chief Executive Officer,  
> The Organa Foundation.
> 
> **To:** [ben_solo@organafoundation.com](mailto:ben_solo@organafoundation.com)  
>  **From:** [rey_niima@organafoundation.com](mailto:rey_niima@organafoundation.com)  
>  **Subject: Re: Meeting?**
> 
> Nothing bad, I promise. Just thought you might want to talk.
> 
> (And before you ask: no, Mitaka wasn’t the one to tattle on you. Don’t scare him!)
> 
> Warm regards,  
> Rey Niima,  
> Head of Human Resources,  
> The Organa Foundation.
> 
> **To:** [rey_niima@organafoundation.com](mailto:rey_niima@organafoundation.com)  
>  **From:** [ben_solo@organafoundation.com](mailto:ben_solo@organafoundation.com)  
>  **Subject: Re: Meeting?**
> 
> I’ll be there in half an hour.
> 
> Best regards,  
> Ben Solo,  
> Chief Executive Officer,  
> The Organa Foundation.

“So if Mitaka wasn’t the one to tattle,” Ben says as he walks into her office, forgoing his usual knock, “who was?”

Rey is still consumed by indecision and doubt as he walks to her, but one look at him and she’s sure she made the right choice to call him into her office. The smile he’s giving her doesn’t reach his eyes, and the way he seems to almost collapse into the chair she’s begun to think of as his fills her with concern.

 _I don’t know, he just seems off,_ Finn had said with a frown at lunch.

 _At least you’ve actually seen him,_ Jessika had replied. _He’s been so quiet I was beginning to wonder if he even came in today._

She’s almost ashamed that it had taken Poe’s reminder for her and the others to put all the pieces together. _Go easy on him, it’s a tough day._

 _Tough_ might be the understatement of the century, given that today is the second anniversary of Han’s death.

Rey takes a moment to brace herself for the conversation ahead before she offers him a small smile. “Let’s just say it was a number of concerned parties.”

“I figured you take your job seriously, but I didn’t realize you’ve gone to the extent of setting up a network of spies to check on everyone’s wellbeing,” Ben teases, but there’s no hiding the hollowness in his voice, the dull look in his eyes, the quivering curve of his lips as if they’re shaking from the strain of maintaining his smile.

“Not everyone,” Rey tells him, and leaves it at that for him to make of it what he will. She’s not quite sure what to make of it herself, the fact that everyone had seen fit to bring their concerns about Ben to her and unanimously decide that she’s the only one qualified to reach out to him on this day.

Whatever the hidden message is, he seems to get it.

Slowly, inevitably, Ben collapses under the strain of his act. It’s a heartbreaking, intimate thing to witness: how his mask gives way to barely-concealed pain, how his shoulders slump in defeat, how he leans forward as if to reach out for her.

“You know what today is, don’t you?” he murmurs, resting his loosely knitted-together hands on her table.

Rey moves closer and reaches across the desk to curl one hand above his. “I do.”

He closes his eyes, draws a shaky breath, and slowly exhales before meeting her eye. “Do you know what happened? The real story, not the one they told everyone else,” he clarifies, and at this point Rey really shouldn’t be surprised anymore.

The official version of events, the one that claims legendary F1 driver Han Solo had somehow lost control of his car on a rainy night and fatally crashed into a tree, should never have held up to scrutiny. But everyone had been too busy mourning his loss and adjusting to his absence to linger on the cruel twist of fate that had taken him then, and no one has been in the mood to poke at barely-healed wounds since.

“No,” she says quietly; unnecessarily if the look on Ben’s face is anything to go by. He nods before she’s even really formed the word, just one tiny, tired dip of his head.

“Barely anyone has,” he whispers. “And only once from me, just enough for my mom to know that… to know that it’s my fault, that I’m the reason–” He falters then, pulls his hands away from hers and brings them up to hide his face instead as his shoulders start to shake and a single, strangled cry rings out in the stillness of her office.

Her first instinct is to rush out of her chair and to his side, to take him into her arms and hold him close, but Rey hesitates. Even after all these weeks of getting to know each other and growing closer, even after a few happy hours spent curled up together while she shared painful details of her past, this is somehow still uncharted territory for them. Ben is open and honest with her, always has been since that very first day, but she’s never seen him vulnerable and hurting like this.

Rey wonders if anyone has in recent years, if Ben has anyone else in the world to hold him and comfort him. And that thought alone is enough to make her brush away her hesitance and go to him, offering him wordless comfort as she wraps her arms around his shoulders and lets him hide his tears in her embrace. She thinks she can feel every single drop of his anguish, scalding hot as they soak through her shirt while she cards one hand through his hair.

“I didn’t know,” Ben finally mumbles against her stomach. It takes him a little while longer to find the strength to pull away from her, and when he does her heart breaks for him all over again. He looks so young like this, with the sad eyes of a lost child drowning in his own grief. “I didn’t know he’d been drinking that night–”

Neither had she until this exact moment, but Rey keeps quiet.

“I didn’t even stop to _think,_ about him or Mom or anyone else, I was just so focused on myself like _always_ , I called him up because I’d finally seen the truth and I was so lost and scared and I needed him and a part of me just knew that he’d help me come home even after everything, that he’d do anything and everything for me…” Ben chokes on a sob, takes a moment to breathe while Rey tries to help him with little sounds of comfort and reassurance and support.

“Dad… Dad hated drunk drivers, always had,” he says, voice thin and shaky but there nonetheless. “He thought they were the most selfish, awful people on the road, for putting other people at risk like that. And no matter what everyone else said, no matter how they’d try to goad or trick or flatter him into driving, _surely the great Han Solo can’t be defeated by just a couple beers–_ no matter what, he never, _ever_ drove under the influence… until that night. Until me and my selfish call and the fucking mess I’d made and dragged him into–”

He’s shaking again, but not from sorrow this time. Rey crouches down, cradles his face in her hands and keeps his eyes on hers. “Hey. _Hey_. Shh, just breathe. Don’t do this to yourself, Han wouldn’t have wanted–”

Ben shakes his head, but gently enough not to dislodge her grip. “You don’t understand, Rey. If it weren’t for me, he would never have gotten on the road that night. If it weren’t for me, he wouldn’t be _dead_. But I called him and he didn’t even stop to ask questions, didn’t even hesitate, just promised me that everything was going to be okay, that he’d be there right away–”

She doesn’t need Ben to finish the story, not that he seems capable of it right now. They know how the story ends; everyone knows the ending even if they don’t know the rest of it.

Han never made it.

“I waited on the curb outside my office for an hour,” he says – quieter now, darker now. “One whole hour, and I never once thought to worry about him, I was so fucking trapped in my own mind. I spent an _hour_ cursing my father out for failing me once again, and all the while he was dying because of me.”

The pain in Ben’s voice is palpable, but the hatred… the hatred is unbearable.

“Ben.” She tightens her grip on him, looks him straight in the eye even as her vision swims with tears. “Ben, listen to me: Han… god, I hate saying this, but Han didn’t have much time left and we all knew it. We _did_ ,” she insists when he begins to shake his head. “You know better than anyone else the kind of shit he got up to when he was younger, the kind of shit he kept doing even after he’d grown far too old for it. The man had _two_ heart attacks in two years, Ben, _Christ,_ it was a miracle he even lived through the first one, let alone the second.”

When she’d told Han as much the day she went to visit him in the hospital despite his protests, he’d laughed weakly and told her that his whole damn life was a miracle, that he’d been living on borrowed time since the day he was born and _one of these days, kid, one of these days_ …

“There was nothing any of us – not you, not me, not Leia, not even the best doctors in the world – none of us could have done anything,” Rey says, as much for Ben’s benefit as her own. And for the very first time, she believes it, accepts it, makes her peace with it. It’s the only way she can encourage Ben to do the same. “But you know what you did do?”

“Other than speed up his death?” Ben mutters darkly, almost petulantly as he tries his best to avoid her eyes. Rey gives him a little pinch on his cheek for that, and nearly laughs at the stupefied look he gives her for it.

“We’ll have none of that, or I’ll go for the other cheek,” she warns him, lips twitching with amusement despite herself. “And _no,_ that’s not it. Ben,” Rey softens, slides her hands into his hair and finally gives into the smile tugging at her lips. “ _Ben_ , you gave him the one thing he wanted more than anything in the world: you gave him his son back.”

“But I–”

Rey shakes her head, pulls him back from the edge before he can drown again. “I spent a lot of time with your parents – you already know why.” He’d unlocked that level of Tragic Backstory just two weeks ago, after Finn and Poe bought everyone several rounds of drinks to celebrate their decision to finally move in together after working through their ridiculous fight from last month. “And all they wanted, the both of them, was for you to come home. You came home that night, Ben. The second you made that call and reached out to him, you came home.”

She waits for the tears to come, his and hers both, but Ben just _stares_ at her instead, lips parted with no words to speak, eyes gleaming with something other than tears.

 _God_ , the way he’s looking up at her right now…

Rey finally gives into the urge to pull him close, to rest her forehead against his and just smile. “Ben, if he could see you today… I promise you, he’d be so proud, and happy, and he wouldn’t regret a single thing, Ben. Not if this is what it all led to.”

It’s not easy, resisting the urge to open her eyes and see if she’s getting through to him, but Rey chooses to trust in the truth, to believe in Ben. She stays still instead, patiently waiting for him to let her know what he needs. It doesn’t take long for him to lower his head and tuck himself under her chin, for him to curl into her waiting arms and just… stay there, for what feels like a lifetime.

But this time, his tears don’t hurt.

They heal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oops, looks like we hit an unexpectedly rough path of angst there. Sorry about that, but I can promise it's all smooth sailing ahead! Only two chapters left, so not much of a surprise really. Until next time: thank you all for reading, thank you so much for your encouragement and support, and please do keep the comments coming if you liked this chapter despite the angst!


	5. 5

> **To:** [ben_solo@organafoundation.com](mailto:ben_solo@organafoundation.com)   
>  **From:** [rey_niima@organafoundation.com](mailto:rey_niima@organafoundation.com)   
>  **Subject: URGENT**
> 
> Hi Ben,
> 
> I’m so sorry about this, but could you come by in twenty minutes? I know it’s almost lunchtime, but something urgent’s come up regarding next week’s staff lunch preparations.
> 
> Warm regards,  
> Rey Niima,  
> Head of Human Resources,  
> The Organa Foundation.
> 
> **To:** [rey_niima@organafoundation.com](mailto:rey_niima@organafoundation.com)   
>  **From:** [ben_solo@organafoundation.com](mailto:ben_solo@organafoundation.com)   
>  **Subject: Re: URGENT**
> 
> I’ll be there. Is everything okay? And do you want me to grab us something to eat?
> 
> Best regards,   
> Ben Solo,   
> Chief Executive Officer,   
> The Organa Foundation.
> 
> **To:** [ben_solo@organafoundation.com](mailto:ben_solo@organafoundation.com)   
>  **From:** [rey_niima@organafoundation.com](mailto:rey_niima@organafoundation.com)   
>  **Subject: Re: URGENT**
> 
> It’s not a huge emergency or anything, just time-sensitive. Sorry for sounding so panicky! And this shouldn’t take long, so don’t worry about getting food.
> 
> Warm regards,  
> Rey Niima,  
> Head of Human Resources,  
> The Organa Foundation.

Rey _would_ feel bad about springing an ‘emergency meeting’ on Ben and potentially disrupting whatever plans he has, but she’d already asked Mitaka about his schedule this morning to make sure she wouldn’t mess up his day.

Predictably, Ben Solo has nothing planned for his birthday.

Scratch that, he has one plan: hole up in his office from the minute he gets in to the minute he clocks out, to prevent any unwelcome surprise celebrations. It’s what he did last year, according to everyone else on the 37th floor, even when they told him they had cake in the breakroom. In fact, Poe says it’s what he did for most of his birthdays growing up.

But not this year, not if Rey has anything to say about it. It’s not like she can’t empathize – she’d spent the longest time hating her assigned birthdate as a child, after all – but ever since Han’s anniversary two weeks ago, something’s changed between them. She can’t quite put her finger on it, can’t quite put it into words, but it’s something that tells her she absolutely cannot let Ben spend his birthday all alone and locked away in a darkened office.

He’ll spend it in her office instead, with a small cake that’s really more for her benefit than his and a card she discreetly passed around the office last week and had everyone sign. She would’ve gotten him a gift, but Rey hadn’t even known his birthday was coming up until she reviewed the monthly employee birthday calendar just last Tuesday and realized Ben’s thirtieth birthday was only a week away.

A week, as it turns out, is not nearly enough time to figure out the perfect gift for your boss-slash-friend-slash-person you get way too comfortable around after two drinks. The cake and the card (and the gift of her company, she supposes) will simply have to be enough, especially since Ben’s supposed to be here any minute now.

He’s almost always on time, if not early, so Rey has no qualms lighting the single candle on his cake and carefully picking it up. She secures the cake in her grip before slowly spinning around so that the back of her chair faces the door, and waits for Ben to arrive. Rose and Kaydel have strict orders not to wish him happy birthday or do anything that might give the surprise away, and her earlier ruse apparently worked a little too well because Ben barges into her office after a series of uncharacteristically frantic knocks.

“I know you said not to panic, but is everything– Oh.”

Rey wheels around with a smile. “Surprise!”

Ben closes the door behind him and leans against it, taking in the scene before him with an almost wary look. “Rey… this is really sweet of you, but–”

“You’re not big on birthdays, I know,” she assures him, setting the cake down on her table so she can wave him forward. “Which is why we’re going to hide in my office for lunch so that the others can’t drag you kicking and screaming to your own surprise birthday party in the breakroom.”

At this, the tension drains out of his shoulders and he happily closes the distance between them as a relieved smile lights up his face. “You know me too well.”

“Make a wish, birthday boy,” Rey says with a grin, pushing the cake towards him. Ben acquiesces, but chooses to maintain eye contact with her throughout the slow and deliberate process of leaning down and blowing out his candle.

It’s… quite a moment.

Rey claps to snap them out of it, and retrieves the oversized card from under her desk to hand it over to him. Finn had told her that last year, none of them had known what to write on the card – on account of the fact that none of them had known the man himself, not really – and so they’d all just signed their names around the standard “happy birthday” message that had come printed on the card. This year, though–

This year she watches Ben open the card, and knows exactly why he grows more and more overwhelmed with emotion as his eyes dart from one message to another, all of them sincere and personalized now that everyone’s gotten to know him better through their weekly happy hours.

She notes a little furrow digging into his brow though, and is ready with a smile when Ben looks up at her. “On the back.”

He closes the card, and sure enough there’s her message to him scrawled across the back, the last one to be written:

_Ben,_

_I know this isn’t what you had in mind for today, but you deserve good days. You deserve good things. And I hope this is the first of many good birthdays we get to celebrate together._

_Love,  
Rey._

There’s so much more she’d wanted to write, so much she’s left unsaid, but when Ben looks up at her with a painfully earnest smile and reaches across the table for her hand, she knows she’s said enough… for now.

“Thank you, Rey,” he says quietly, his smile as warm as sunshine as he squeezes her hand. “Really, this is… this is already the best birthday I’ve had in years, if not ever.”

An incredulous laugh bubbles past her lips. “Ben, it’s just cake and a card, I didn’t even get you–”

“It’s not _just_ cake and a card,” Ben corrects her. “It’s… it’s getting to spend the day with someone who actually cares. I haven’t had that chance in a long time.”

After everything else he’s shared with her, this… this really isn’t much. But she still cherishes every single secret he trusts her with, every ounce of vulnerability he’s comfortable showing her. “I… I know what that feels like,” Rey tells him in return. “Believe it or not, I haven’t always been the biggest fan of birthdays myself,” she adds with a little huff of laughter.

Ben’s hand is still on hers, and he moves to lace their fingers together. “Because of…?”

She nods. “They didn’t even bother leaving a birth certificate, or a note, or anything. Just a baby, a blanket, and a basket on the front door of a police station, like something out of a movie.” Rey fights off a grimace at the memory. “Did you know my name might not even be Rey? It was stitched into the blanket, but people who can’t even be bothered to write a note wouldn’t have bothered getting personalized blankets, would they? More likely that they got it from a thrift store, or maybe even stole it.”

The soothing motion of Ben’s thumb running up and down the side of her hand keeps her from getting tangled up in that old mess. “Anyway, the hospital figured I was the size of an average one-month-old, but I was also malnourished enough that I could’ve just been abnormally small for my age. They had no idea what to do, so they just listed my birthdate as exactly a month before the day I was abandoned. You can probably see why that never really felt like cause for celebration to me,” Rey says with a shrug and a little smile, the instinct to fake nonchalance at her past so much a part of her now that she does it even with Ben.

He keeps her hand in his, warm and solid and reassuring. “So when did you start celebrating?” Ben asks, gently guiding her away from the darkness.

This time, her smile is sincere. “The first year of college. Finn asked me when my birthday was one day, just out of the blue, like friends do, and I just… I was so _hostile_ about it. But eventually he pried it out of me, in bits and pieces, and that year he threw this huge party for me, to show me how many people I had in my life now, how many people cared about me. And I’ve been in love with birthdays ever since.”

Ben smiles at that, and lets go of her hand when she pulls away to get two plates and a knife, which she makes a show of presenting to him. He laughs as he takes it, and serves them two huge slices of cake.

“I love how you automatically know to make mine super-sized,” she quips as they dig in.

“Maybe we both know each other too well.” He smiles at the thought, and Rey spends a little too long with a forkful of cake hovering in the air, caught up in his bright eyes. They eat in silence for a moment, until–

“I used to love birthdays,” Ben tells her, between bites. He doesn’t quite look up, so she pretends to focus on her cake as well. “I think I was six, the first time my mom didn’t come home for my birthday. And then the next year, neither of them were there. And yeah, they made sure to call and they left cake and presents and a signed card, but… that just made it worse, somehow. Because none of it meant anything if they weren’t there with me – and they almost never were, after that.”

Rey slides her hand back into his, and Ben looks up at her with a smile.

“But you’re here now.”

“I’m here now,” she echoes, and hopes he catches on to the unspoken promise that she always will be, year after year, if that’s what he wants.

He nods to himself, as if he’d gotten the message somehow, and they go back to finishing their cake. Ben laughs when she excuses herself for a minute only to return with a bag of take-out from a nearby Italian place they’ve gone to for lunch a couple times and tells her that they’re doing this all out of order, but they dig in nonetheless and the hour seems to fly by as they talk about their friends and their lives and their plans for the upcoming staff lunch, their first major employee engagement effort.

Five minutes past one, Ben reluctantly gets to his feet and accepts his card from Rey with a sigh. “What’s the point of being the boss if you can’t spend your birthday eating cake and hiding out in HR all day?”

“You _could_ ,” Rey points out with a laugh, “but can you really stomach more cake? Because even _I’m_ done for now, I think.”

“Good point,” Ben says with a grimace as he pats his stomach. “Fine, I’ll get back to work then.”

It’s habit by now, for her to cross her desk and step into his arms for a hug before he leaves. “Happy birthday, Ben,” she whispers into his shoulder as they hug.

Warm lips brush against her temple. “Thank you, sweetheart.”

Ben tenses before she’s even really registered what he’s just called her, and before she knows it he’s out of her arms and her office, throwing a hurried “Thanks again, see you around!” over his shoulder before the door closes behind him.

Rey blinks as her door slams shut, and a laugh escapes her as her mind finally catches up to the situation and Ben’s reaction to his little slip-up. She’s still smiling as she turns back to her desk and picks up the remaining half of the cake to offer to Rose and Kaydel, both of whom appear to be equally stunned and intrigued by their boss’ abrupt departure.

It’s really too bad that he’d freaked out over it, because Rey finds she quite likes the sound of Ben calling her sweetheart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was supposed to be at least ten times fluffier than it is, with a healthy dose of pining... but nothing is going according to plan with this fic. I'm really glad you guys seem to be liking it anyway.
> 
> Our next (and last) chapter will feature a bit of a change, both in setting and POV. Time to go visit the 37th floor! I'm hoping to have that up later today, so I'll see you guys then.
> 
> Until then, as always: thank you so much for reading, I hope you liked it, and please don't hesitate to leave a comment!


	6. +1

> **To:** [rey_niima@organafoundation.com](mailto:rey_niima@organafoundation.com)   
>  **From:** [ben_solo@organafoundation.com](mailto:ben_solo@organafoundation.com)   
>  **Subject: Company picnic**
> 
> Hi Rey,
> 
> I’ve got several updates from the board on our annual picnic idea. Could you come by my office first thing tomorrow morning to discuss?
> 
> Best regards,   
> Ben Solo,   
> Chief Executive Officer,   
> The Organa Foundation.
> 
> **To:** [ben_solo@organafoundation.com](mailto:ben_solo@organafoundation.com)   
>  **From:** [rey_niima@organafoundation.com](mailto:rey_niima@organafoundation.com)   
>  **Subject: Re: Company picnic**
> 
> Hey Ben,
> 
> Sure, I’ll see you in the morning. Fingers crossed for good news!
> 
> Warm regards,  
> Rey Niima,  
> Head of Human Resources,  
> The Organa Foundation.

Exactly a week after Ben Solo’s birthday, he finds himself critically considering a bouquet on his desk. It’d been an impulse purchase on his way to his meeting with Rey, which had also come about due to his impulsive decision to contact her after a week of radio silence on his end, which had, of course, been caused by his very, _very_ impulsive mistake of calling her sweetheart.

It’s a pretty thing, if you ask him, an explosion of white and yellow blooms that remind him of Rey and the light she’s brought into his life. He’d picked it out with exactly that sentiment in mind, but now that he’s supposed to give it to her in about five minutes, Ben suddenly regrets his questionable decision-making.

Flowers have meanings, don’t they? What the hell had he been thinking, buying her a bouquet based on aesthetics? What if sunflowers mean something bad, something _cruel_? What if that’s the first thing Rey notices when she walks into his office and it dooms them before they’ve even begun?

He can’t bear the thought of going back to a life without her. He’s spent all week realizing _exactly_ how much he can’t bear it, and now it might just happen anyway because he’s an idiot who’s never bought anyone flowers before and didn’t _think_ before acting and _fuck_ , what is he even going to say to her when he presents her with these possibly rude flowers?

To be safe, Ben pulls his phone out of his pocket and frantically keys in a Google search riddled with typos. But before he can dive into the results for _sumflwr meabinh,_ a single knock rings across his office.

And when he turns around, there she is.

“You kept Leia’s chairs,” is the first thing Rey says to him in a week, giving him a bright smile as she settles into one of said chairs, a pair of emerald velvet tufted wingback chairs his mother had salvaged from the burning wreckage of her childhood home in Alderaan.

Ben had expected her to take them when she retired, had insisted that she do so even, but Leia had simply smiled at him with a faraway look in her eyes as she patted the tall back of one chair, reminiscing about the many days he’d spent curled up in these very chairs as a toddler, a tiny little thing floating in an emerald sea.

He’d stopped protesting after that.

Rey blinks at him expectantly, and he realizes that that’s it, that’s all she has to say for now, she’s not going to confront or lecture or push him about the fact that he’s avoided her for a whole week. It shouldn’t surprise him, really, since that’s one of his favorite things about her: how she always knows when to push him and when to give him space, when to prod and when to be patient.

“I, um, yeah, I did–”

“Oh, what’s this?” she coos with obvious delight as she spots the bouquet on his desk, reaching out to trace the sunflower’s petals with a light touch.

Right.

This is it, then.

Showtime.

Now or never.

For Rey.

Ben takes a deep breath, and makes the unexpected choice to pick up the flowers and settle into the matching chair next to Rey’s rather than his own on the other end of his desk.

Rey watches him with careful yet smiling eyes, and he catches the little puff of laughter that escapes her when he awkwardly thrusts the bouquet into her hands. “They’re for you.”

“They’re beautiful, Ben,” she says, shifting the arrangement to cradle it in one arm. “So is this a _congratulations, our picnic idea has been greenlit_ gift or…?”

The way she lets the question hang in the air, the way she smiles knowingly and expectantly at him, the way one finger is gently, reverently running along each carefully-chosen bloom…

She knows. Of course she knows, his beautiful, perfect, bright Rey; of course she would have pieced it all together long before him, human disaster that he is.

And she’s here. She knows, and she’s here, and she’s smiling, and she’s _waiting_ –

Rey’s done more than enough of that for a lifetime, Ben knows. He won’t, _can’t_ keep her waiting for even one second longer.

“It’s… it’s a _these reminded me of you_ gift, because they’re so bright and sunny and Rey,” he falters on her name as he loses his train of thought, only to find renewed strength in the way she slips her free hand into his and encourages him to go on with a wordless nod. “ _Rey_ , I know that’s not always you, I don’t need that to be you all the time, I want you to just be _you_ around me, but… but even at your lowest point, even in your darkest moments… you’re still perfect to me. You’re still the sun to me. You – fuck, this is so corny but you make me want to be corny, you make me feel like maybe I’m capable of that, maybe I can just be the guy who’s corny about this _amazing_ woman who lights up his life, who makes him feel seen and heard and cared for for the first time in _years_. You make me feel… you make me feel like maybe I do deserve good things in my life, Rey. And you are, without a doubt, the best thing that could ever happen to me, that _has_ ever happened to me.”

He has no idea what he’s just said, no way of knowing if he even makes sense anymore, but if the way Rey is smiling at him while her eyes shine in a telling way is anything to go by–

“I know this is… this is _so_ not HR-sanctioned,” Ben adds, attempting to end on a light note as if that’ll make up for the rest of his desperate, rambling, half-coherent plea. “But I was hoping that maybe…”

He trails off at the sight of Rey moving to place the bouquet on his desk, and holds his breath.

This is either about to go very, very well, or very, very wrong.

She could be getting ready to stand up, walk away, and leave this place – leave him – for good. Or _…_

Or she could simply be freeing up her hands so that she can reach out for him instead, so that she can rest one hand on his beating heart and curl the other around his neck to pull his lips down to hers.

Ben doesn’t actually realize she’s gone with option B until their lips touch.

It’s like a burst of static, but painless.

It’s like everything he’s ever dreamed of, but better.

It’s like coming home, but to a home you’d long ago given up hope on ever finding.

It’s _perfect,_ in other words, and he doesn’t know why that surprises him given that Rey is involved. She kisses him soft and sweet, winds both arms around his neck to draw him as close as possible and smiles into their kiss until he’s smiling too.

And Ben can’t even complain when she finally pulls away, because then she’s whispering against his lips–

“Have lunch with me today?”

Like an idiot, he ruins the moment by incredulously blurting out the first thing that comes to his dazed mind. “Here?”

Rey just laughs and kisses him again, shakes her head with a smile as she cards a hand through his hair. “Let’s go somewhere, just the two of us.”

It’s hard to think straight with her looking at him like… like he imagines he must be looking at her right now, like he hung the stars and the moon, like this could be the start of the rest of their lives. But somehow, _mercifully_ , his brain gets it together just long enough to realize, with no small amount of hope– “Like a date?”

“Exactly like a date,” Rey says, making all his dreams come true.

Ben is the one to kiss her this time, cradling her face in his hands like the precious gift it is while he tries to tell her with a kiss all the things he can’t say just yet, all the things he knows he’ll tell her soon enough anyway because this is _Rey,_ Rey who makes him feel safe, Rey who makes him feel like a person again, Rey who’s only known him for a few months but already knows him better than anyone else.

Suddenly overcome by a tidal wave of joy, Ben pulls back to give her a smile so wide it hurts. “Is HR okay with this?” he asks teasingly, feeling lighter than he has in a long, long time.

Rey laughs and rolls her eyes at him and tugs him back down into another kiss. “HR,” she murmurs against his lips, “is very, _very_ okay with this.”

.  
.  
.

(The rest of HR, as it turns out, is maybe not so okay with their boss going missing for the entire morning, but they quickly get over that when they find out she’s been hard at work practicing employee engagement with the CEO.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sunflowers, in case anyone was wondering, apparently mean adoration, loyalty, and longevity. I'd say Ben got it right.
> 
> We made it to the finish line, friends! After a whole year of trying to get this written, only to realize that it was never meant to be just a one-shot and then having to adapt it for a multi-chapter format, and then struggling to get back into the swing of things after a prolonged hiatus... I can't believe we made it. And really, sincerely, from the bottom of my heart: it's all thanks to you guys. You've been so sweet, and supportive, and encouraging, and kind beyond belief. Thank you all so much for every single lovely comment that kept me going. <3
> 
> To Beth, thank you for the prompt that started it all. This was an absolute joy to write, and I hope you've had as much fun reading it as I have writing it.
> 
> I'll be starting my holiday fic giveaway soon (the first fic goes up on the 3rd), so I'll see you guys around! Until then, thank you so much for reading and please feel free to leave one last comment on this fic. It really does mean so much to me.


End file.
